Talmage Fauntleroy
This article describes the life and career of alumnus Talmage Fauntleroy '75. This and other articles may be found in the University Archives.
Citation for this article is: "Talmage Fauntleroy," ECU Report , Summer 1989, Volume 20, No. 4.
The odds were definitely against him.In only four days, Talmage R. Fauntleroy '75 had to turn a group of advanced singers from the School of Music into polished stage actors for a performance of scenes from selected operas.
It was no easier for the students, having to make their characters convincing without the help of costumes, elaborate stage decorations, or a language their audience could understand.
The Friday performance was informal, but a public one.It was then that everything came together.Gone were the awkward movements prevalent on Monday; in their places were gestures of confident actors who succeeded in bringing a host of colorful characters to life.
A beaming Fauntleroy, honored with a standing ovation by the students at the end of the performance, was pleased. "They really rose to the occasion," he says.
Fauntleroy has been conducting characterization workshops at schools of music and opera in Europe and the United States since 1984.
"It's best to consider these workshops I do as a week of master classes," he says. "The purpose of a master class is not to shake up and create something new, because there's not enough time.Instead they are designed to fine-tune, round out ideas and polish things the staff is already working on."
The key to interpreting a character, Fauntleroy says, is research -- reading the original work on which the opera was based -- if it exists -- and studying that period of history. "You'll find you have some more to work with if you do some study on historical background," he says. "And you'll be surprised at how much history you'll learn."
A complete psychological study of the character, as well as musical and literary elements of the opera are also helpful in creating a realistic character. "To begin such a study," Fauntleroy says, "it is best to identify the sources of information, pinpoint the major traits of the character and follow the development and progression of the character during the opera."
The key to good characterization, Fauntleroy believes, is allowing and encouraging students to rely on their instincts. "I tend to think there are any number of ways to interpret most characters, and I like to give students the freedom," he says. "I tell them if something doesn't look good."
Tim Legeros, a sophomore who played the role of Don Giovanni in a scene from Mozart's opera of the same name, says the workshop was very helpful. "I learned a lot; it was a pleasure to work with him," Legeros says."It helped to know that Don Giovanni was an oily, cocky playboy; he really brought that out."
Voice Professor Clyde A. Hiss, who taught Fauntleroy when he was at ECU, was amazed at what his former student was able to accomplish in a very short time. "I'm very proud of him; he's done very well," Hiss says. "I certainly wouldn't want to walk in and try to do those scenes in four days."
Fauntleroy has done well, in a field where competition is fierce for the few opportunities that exist. For the past eight years he has lived in Florence, Italy, where he serves as artistic director of Studio Lirico, an opera apprenticeship program for young professional singers. He also teaches classes in costume history, stage movement and acting at Pietro Mascagni, a conservatory in Liverno, where he serves as director of opera theater.
This fall he will leave it all to join the directing staff of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, where one of his first duties will be assistant directing productions of Porgy and Bess and Verdi's La Traviata and Aida.
A native of Hampton, Va., Fauntleroy knew at the age of 10 he wanted to major in music."It was always deciding which of the two, music or drama, I wanted to do," he says.
He was guided to ECU by his high school chorus director, where he majored in music education. "My interest in opera began here, but it was very elementary," Fauntleroy says."At that time I was interested primarily in performing in musical theater as a singer/dancer."
Fauntleroy studied dance under Mavis Ray and Pat Pertalion, was a voice student of Gladys White and performed in several drama and opera productions while at ECU.
In 1975, he enrolled in graduate school at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, where he held a graduate assistantship in theater. In the summer of 1976 he moved to Washington, D.C., for a production of The Lincoln Years at Ford's Theater.
Fauntleroy was hired as a singer/dancer and dance captain, but took on the role of stage director with only 10 rehearsal days left after the original stage director suffered a nervous breakdown.
"I had never had any experience directing, but I realized because of the success of the show that it was something I had a talent for," Fauntleroy says."Not only that, but the director of the theater invited me back the next summer to do a show of my own."
Instead of returning to Carbondale at summer's end, Fauntleroy finished his master's degree in music at Howard University in Washington, D.C.To support himself, he took a job teaching music and drama at a private elementary school in Georgetown.
"It was a terrible experience," Fauntleroy says. "It was a very prestigious school, and I had several senators' and diplomats' kids who were brats.
"It takes a special talent to deal with kids in the fifth and sixth grades, and I didn't have it in spite of all of the wonderful education classes I had at ECU."
Fauntleroy fared much better at Ellington School for the Arts, a high school in Washington, D.C., where he taught an opera workshop. "That was a good experience because I taught part time, and I had some good kids," he says.
Because Fauntleroy's educational background was in music, opera seemed like the perfect outlet for his directing talents."What is opera but music and theater, so it was perfect for me," he says."The experience I had as a dancer also helped in teaching people how to move."
With that decided, Fauntleroy launched an all-out effort to learn everything he could about opera. Over the next few years he amassed quite an impressive array of credits, including a 1976 stint as an administrative intern for OPERA America in Washington, D.C., and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for a four-month internship in the Opera-Music Theater division.
"That was the most intstrumental factor in my training because it helped prepare me for the job I am doing now as artistic director of Studio Lirico,"Fauntleroy says. "They gave me background not only in what to do on stage but also how to organize and administrate opera. Extremely helpful was learning how to put together a proposal for a grant.I do that now in Italian."
Fauntleroy spent the summer of 1978 at the Glyndebourne Opera house in England, where he served as an apprentice to a staff stage director.
"That was an exciting summer for me because it was my first experience of seeing from the inside how a professional opera company works," Fauntleroy says."Glyndebourne was a great place to start because it is one of the very best opera houses in the world and attracted top-name singers."
Fauntleroy took his first trip to Italy in 1979 to study opera at the Tito Gobbi Institute. He returned in 1981 to study theater and the Italian language, thanks to another grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
"That grant was going to allow me to stay in Italy for three months," Fauntleroy remembers. "After I got there I decided to look for an opportunity that would allow me to stay another month.Instead I got a singing job that kept me there for a year. When that job ended I had another offer."
That offer was for the position at Studio Lirico, where he would spend the next eight years designing and organizing the apprentice program, writing grants and proposals, and producing and staging performances.
According to Fauntleroy, language was never a problem."It took me about a year to learn Italian," he says. "It was fun; the Italians are extremely helpful by correcting you when you make a mistake."
His resume boasts of excellent reading, writing and conversational skills in Italian and published translations from Italian to English.
Fauntleroy has also free-lanced his stage directing talents at theaters in the United States and England. His production of Rossini's Barber of Seville for the Virginia Opera Theater was described as "delightfully coy but avoids the overinventive excesses stage directors so often use."
Fauntleroy's ECU visit was a result of the Minority Presence Initiative, a program sponsored by the Offices of the Chancellor, Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Equal Opportunities Programs to expose students to minority scholars.
